Ramblings of an Emergency Physician in Texas

[GruntDoc], an attending emergency physician at Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital, had a problem. He’d just raised the ire of the nurses who work with him – and many who don’t—by posting a provocative entry to his popular GruntDoc blog (www.gruntdoc.com) titled “The Lifesaving Foley.”

In August of last year, he decided to write about “a peculiar phenomenon” he’d recently noticed with his nursing colleagues. “I’ll be in the middle of a code, look around and see a nurse studiously inserting a catheter into the patient,” he wrote. Then, he added, “We’ll be getting ready to intubate an agitated patient; I look and see the nurse is busy intubating Mr. Johnson.” And then [GruntDoc] took a jab he later regretted:

“I have no idea why. Really, I think they’re stressed out, and want to ‘Do Something.’ They see a task they’re comfortable doing, and so they do it. Indication or not, right time or not, utility or not. I’ve taken to calling it The Lifesaving Foley, for obvious reasons, though I don’t think it’s saved a life yet.”

Oops. Comments from, shall we say, moderately peeved nurses came fast and furious to the GruntDoc blog. A week later he posted a mea culpa entry to the blog titled “Some Nurse Love,” and listed a number of reasons why he appreciated nurses.

“I try not to write anything on the blog that I wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the newspaper,” [GruntDoc] said. “But in that case I don’t think the nurses were amused.”